The Changing Japanese Defense Policy-A Perspective from Neo-Conservatism

Most analyses on Japan's defense policy used to focus on the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan (hereinafter U.S-Japan Security Treaty) and the changing regional environment, which overlooked Japan's domestic factors, particularly the impact from cultural norms on its defense policy. Japan is a society of collectivism, i.e., traditional cultural and social norms have greater restraints than legal regulations, and the influence from interpersonal relations outside institutions outweighs that from the government-established systems. This article tries to analyze the changes in Japan's defense policy in the postwar years from the perspective of cultural norms. The author argues that recent changes in Japan's defense policy are primarily attributed to the surging influence of taco-conservatism in its domestic domain, which is demarked by two coordinates-Washington's anti-terrorism policy as the vertical coordinate and the threats from China and North Korea as the horizontal coordinate. These two create a framework for Japan to move its defense policy from passive to active step by step. This is also the main force behind Japan's endeavors to revise its pacifist constitution since 2000 to be a normal country, and its breakthrough of traditional taboos by sending Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to take part in international peace-keeping operations.

並列關鍵字

neo-conservatism ； cultural norms ； defense policy ； anti-terrorism policy ； Japan

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